Make way, new doctor in Aussie
Here’s myself, Adeline and Syameer (left to right)
I officially started working at Mackay Base Hospital (MBH) in a small little town, Mackay in the state of Queensland. The decision to move to Australia came around early last year 2022. It was a decision, I suppose, that was long overdue. I initially applied to work in Australia as an intern back in 2019 when I was still in my fifth year of medical school. At that time, my head was still not in the game and truth be told I wasn’t desperate enough to move abroad and start fresh. Having left home from Subang to Johor for 3 years and then the thought of moving abroad was just overwhelming. So I decided to stay in Malaysia before eventually moving to Australia.
After 2 years of housemanship, and working difficult long hours, with an average of 90 hours per week, and surviving countless episodes of burnout, depression, mania, tearful moments, I thought it was time to move away from this unhealthy work life. The experience was enriching, no doubt. I’ve gained a lot of skills in these two years of training, enhanced reflexes when dealing with emergencies, inserting cannulas, performing venipunctures, inserting arterial lines all with double gloves and a spacesuit (tyvec suit) within minutes; I don’t think experiences like this come by just anywhere, but only in a healthcare that requires you to perform three times faster, four times smarter and five times better.
There aren’t many pictures of Mackay Base Hospital. But here’s a shot of it.
While our Malaysian junior doctoring experiences have come under huge fire recently, there remains to be little to no hope towards providing a better work experience, culture, working hours, and pay to the healthcare fraternity. It is futile to even think that the system will ever improve. Hence, the decision to move abroad was inevitable. There is a saying here in Australia that we have to advocate for ourselves. There’s only so much advocacy that can come to fruition. The grass here seems greener in this avenue.
Admittedly, moving abroad don’t always equate to greener pastures. Loneliness and depression often creep around the corners. But having friends and a supportive work environment does help.
I can’t believe it has been four whole weeks since I’ve landed in Australia. Work experience has been great so far. When we first started our journey, the education unit of MBH has prepared a two weeks orientation to help us navigate through an entirely new healthcare system, one that is fully electronic. Every day there would be a specific objective to achieve. There were 6 of us that had joined in as resident medical officers and probably 20-30 new interns. This orientation also included several simulation trainings targeted towards interns to help them with ward calls later. It was obvious that the orientation was targeted towards the interns to help them navigate into their new doctoring role. I couldn’t stop but wonder if the architect of this orientation were to be introduced in Malaysia, I think I would do a hell lot better to cope as a house officer. Putting a fresh medical graduate into the deep sea and expecting them to work like a full fledged doctor is unrealistic and way too optimistic. It was a good two weeks that I felt had helped set the expectation for interns and to prepare them to work in a clinical setting, officially moving them away from the protected university environment.
I remember I had a lot of praises towards the architect of the orientation. It was nicely laid out and felt that it had even prepared me to do the job I was intended here as a resident medical officer.
With 2 weeks of orientation past, I have officially worked as a medical officer in the last two weeks. My experiences have been very pleasant so far. The idea of calling everyone by their first name never fails to amaze me. I was of course anxious on my first day in the ward, not knowing what to expect. But I recall going to work at 7.30AM that morning, to do up the patient list and to read up on my patients. 8.00AM was handover meeting for registrars and consultants to sit in to listen the new patients that had been admitted overnight as well as to understand patients that were of concern overnight. By 8.30AM, the team would group together and start their ward rounds.
On this side of the world, consultants knew all the cases and there aren’t any formality towards interns and medical officers to present cases, whereas in Malaysia, house officers were expected to review all their patients and present during rounds. Over here, life is made simple where we would open up the patient’s note and read it together. It was a blissful round every day as every patient is a teaching opportunity. Consultants and registrars would teach and ask questions. Generally, everyone in the round was invited to participate and contribute to the patient care. It’s been a good 4 weeks. It is now the middle of my 5th week working here. I’ve only done 2 ABGs, inserted 2 cannulas, taken bloods twice and attended one desat. Reflecting back I’ve done 10 times that amount in a whole week. Hard to imagine but it is indeed a paradigm shift in terms of work load and also just the practice overall. The ability to utilise skills here is of course incomparable to that in Malaysia, but the learning here is great.
While I’m only in my fifth week, there’s still lots to discover here. For now, I hope my experiences have shed some light to those of you who intend to move abroad, particularly to Australia. I have a thread in twitter that gives you an idea on where to start if you’re thinking of working. Check it out here.
Here’s a picture of me! Ready to start a new epic adventure.
Officially started my journey as a doctor in Australia on 9 January 2023.
Note: This post was previously published on darienliew.blog my old website on 8 February 2023.
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RT @abd_jabbar: The long chronicles between KKM and their doctors over various issues are like a series of parallel conflicts spann… https://t.co/E0W1ARKMaF -
RT @HazreenAbdul: I did my HOship in Sungai Buloh, and Orthopaedic with that infamous HOD. Back then being bullied was just a given… https://t.co/zAH1NrmzI4
